MARY ANASTASIA O’GRADY: VENEZUELA’S CUBAN ELECTION
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324695104578418491184138804.html
The Castro regime wasn’t going to allow an easy victory for the opposition candidate who has pledged to stop sending oil to Havana.
Venezuela held a presidential election on Sunday to replace left-wing populist Hugo Chávez, whose death was announced on March 5.
The United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) put up Nicolás Maduro, a Cuba-trained ideologue and the man the cancer-stricken Chávez anointed as his heir in December. Facing off against him was Justice First candidate Henrique Capriles, governor of the state of Miranda and the first politician since the 1998 advent of chavismo who has been able to unify the opposition.
As we went to press, returns were not yet in. But the opposition was calling on supporters to demand proof of the vote count at local polling stations. Tensions were rising.
If Mr. Capriles prevailed it would be a major upset. A Maduro victory was more likely not only because of the sympathy vote for the late Chávez. The chavistas have been using state power to cheat, intimidate and spend themselves first across the finish line for more than a decade. International observers were prohibited from sending missions to Venezuela and Mr. Capriles was denied access to almost all television and radio stations during the campaign.
Reuters
Acting Venezuelan President and presidential candidate Nicolás Maduro speaks before a portrait of the late President Hugo Chávez on Saturday.
Then there was the Cuba factor. The Castro regime has become a big player in Venezuelan politics and had a big stake in the outcome—namely the threat by Mr. Capriles that if he won he would curtail the shipment of some $4 billion in oil annually to the regime. As such Havana made sure it held considerable sway over the outcome.
Last month the Spanish newspaper ABC reported that the regime “is sending a detachment of agents for electoral control that could reach 2,500 officers, according to intelligence information that came out of the island.” Havana admits that there are already some 46,000 Cubans serving the “revolution” in Venezuela. These are supposedly medical personnel, teachers and trainers, but a former high-ranking chavista who didn’t want to be identified told ABC that “all of that is a cover to hide the control that Cuba has in Venezuela.”
That comment was supported by the declaration by Cuba’s chief of missions in Venezuela that the missions are there “to ensure our commitment; if until now we have been giving our all, [we] now are ready to give even our lives, our blood, if it were needed for this revolution.”‘
In 2005, while hosting a visit from Chávez in Havana, Fidel Castro proclaimed Venezuela and Cuba one country and its people “Venecubans.” In 2010, the Economist magazine reported on an “apparently . . . long stay” in Caracas of Castro intelligence heavyweight Ramiro Valdés, “whose responsibilities at home include policing Cuban’s access to the Internet.”
The story also noted Cuban involvement in the operation of “Venezuela’s ports, telecommunications, police training, the issuing of identity documents and the business registry” and that in 2005 it received “a contract to modernize [Venezuela’s] identity card system.”
In a fair fight, the 40-year-old Mr. Capriles might have won easily. Inflation for the first quarter of this year was well over 30% annualized. Currency weakness and price controls are causing shortages of many staple foods that now have to be imported because the agricultural sector has been destroyed by nationalizations and capital flight. The poor are also those who most suffer the effects of the soaring murder rate. Electricity blackouts have become routine.
The Maduro campaign relied heavily on emotion to counteract potential apathy for its candidate. The image of Chávez, whose death stirred thousands to weeping hysterically in the streets only five weeks ago, was never far from Mr. Maduro as he stumped on television or in person. He even claimed that Chávez returned to see him in the guise of a little bird.
Yet the chavistas and the Castro regime weren’t willing to depend on the ghost of Chávez for victory. Last month, during the auditing of voting machines, the opposition uncovered evidence that the PSUV had in its possession pass codes that gave it the ability to sabotage the voting process on election day. The head of the opposition coalition said that this would not affect vote tallies, but it could be used to slow the process.
This might explain why in past elections at polling stations where the opposition vote was strong, waiting times often ran for many hours, leading many potential voters to skip the exercise altogether. The government-controlled electoral council denied the charges and the matter has not been rectified.
Electronic voting machines provide plenty of other opportunities for shenanigans. In past elections, Bolivarian enforcers executed a late-day roundup in poor neighborhoods of anyone who was a no-show at the polls. Many Venezuelans believe that because finger prints and identity numbers are taken at voting station, the vote is not secret. Fear of punishment either by getting fired from one’s job or being denied state aid is real.
The upshot here is that Sunday’s election told us very little about the real preferences of the Venezuelan electorate.
Write to O’Grady@wsj.com
A version of this article appeared April 15, 2013, on page A15 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Venezuela’s Cuban Election.
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